Linked by mufasa on Mon 10th Aug 2009 12:25 UTC
The web browser has been the dominant thin client, now rich client, for almost two decades, but can it compete with a new thin client that makes better technical choices and avoids the glacial standards process? I don't think so, as the current web technology stack of HTML/Javascript/Flash has accumulated so many bad decisions over the years that it's ripe for a clean sheet redesign to wipe it out.
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Member since:2006-02-05
Completely agree. The big problem with the web is that the W3C blows. We need a process that doesn't take 5-10 years to come up with a standards recommendation.
Semantic elements, web workers, canvas, border-radius, gradient, and column-layout solve most of the things that are irritations with writing for the web right now. Unfortunately, it is going to take another five years or so before this spec gets out the door, and people can start working on the next list of annoyances.
Member since:2006-01-04
+1
I think every platform that evolves and adapts will be very hard to beat/replace. And it seems open standards and platforms are inherently better at this than some grand brainchild of some company/single developer.
But there are some use cases where HTML/JS won't work well that is why Google is working on native client.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 22:23 UTC
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 13:38 UTC
"The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 13:30 UTC, submitted by JRepin
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 22:06 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:45 UTC
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."More News »
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Member since:
2009-08-10
The web works because of the way it has evolved. You can't just take that success and transplant it onto another stack.
"Graphic designers would use GUI tools exclusively to work with this binary format, which works out perfectly as nobody wants to muck around with a markup language like HTML anyway."
*nobody* ?? Really? What evidence supports this?
Would they prefer to rely on expensive paid-for or free "design" tools.
Either sounds like a *major* step backwards, vendor lock-in, risky.
No. The existing stack is open, flexible, proven and get this: *not difficult*.
If anything, some effort needs to go into improving JS frameworks, specifically AJAX frameworks (mootools, prototype, JQuery etc), building on HTML5. Google and Apple will most likely make a major contributions here.
Other improvements could include efficient media handling, lower down in the stack (including TCP - which is something Google *is* looking at), not in the parts that are proven to work.